Model Trains Rolling Stock Inventory Programs

Edit from Blue Flamer.

Bob.

If you go back to around page 13 to 15 (at present time, 12:25PM) you will find a thread with Inventory Freeware in the title. This has the link to the freeware. I hope that this helps.

Blue Flamer.

to the Forums, Bob. I am afraid that I can't help you with your problem, but I am sure that there is someone out there that can help you. There was a gentleman on this Forum just 2 or 3 weeks ago that had designed an Inventory Tracking Program that you want and posted a link to it for all to use freely. If you go to the "SEARCH OUR COMMUNITY" box on the right hand side of this page and type in what you have in your subject line for this thread, it will probably come up in General Discussion (Model Railroader).

Good Luck and come on back anytime. Questions and Helpful Hints are always welcome. FYI, check the latest edition of Weekend Photo Fun or WPF. This last one was titled New Years WPF. It will show you what people on these forums are doing.

Blue Flamer.

I keep my rolling stock inventory on a spreadsheet.  I'm a Windows guy and so I use the Windows spreadsheet Excel.  I'm sure the Mac has a simular spreadsheet that would work fine. 

  I created columns for each attribute (roadname, reporting marks, maker, date  acquired , notes on construction, maintenance history, weight and so on).   Each piece of rolling stock gets one row. The spreadsheet program will sort the rows into order on any column you desire.  I can sort on road name, reporting marks, date acquired, anything I like.  I can enter new rolling stock on the last free row and then have the spreadsheet sort it into order.  

Yard Office?     http://musicmixradio.com/yardoffice/download.html

From the download page

(Yard Office is Windows-based software and requires Windows 98 or newer. Yes, it runs in Vista too.  iMac users tell us that it works fine in the Windows Partition.)

You can download the full version and try it out for free.

ratled

Hi!  And welcome to the Forum!

I am a Windows guy, and have used Excel since it replaced Lotus many years ago.  I found it worked really well for an inventory spreadsheet, allowing me to sort to my hearts content.  At my max, I had just under 700 cars and 68 power units, and the program allowed me to do "whatever".

The secret is in the input data - more specifically the various columns upon which to key your sorts.  The more data columns, the "betterish" it will work for you!

I am fairly ignorant of Mac stuff, but surely there is an Excel type program out there for you to utilize.

JMRI is free and has a car and lcoo roster built in.

Hi,

I'm with 'ratled' on this one. I'm currently entering data into Yard Office, and find it easy to use, easy to change the settings, and easy to make new settings.

Count me as another happy Yard Office user.  The free version is great, but after working with it for a few hours I registered it and have not regretted it one minute.

Have a look here to see the additions you get with registration.

Vernon

I bought Yard Office.  It seems OK, and it's only $35.  Or, it was when I bought it.

I e-mailed in a question and never received a response.  Kinda disappointing.  And a bit of an enthusiasm killer.

Might try making my own with Excel.  Someday.

Ed

I use an ancient copy of Appleworks on MacBook and an iMac, I've been too cheap to buy a newer Office type program and avoid Microsoft whenever possible.  I use the database portion of it to keep my rolling stock and engine rosters, actually a combined rolling stock and engine roster. If I did it over I'd most likely split the engine and rolling stock rosters.  Other than that I like using my own database, it has the info I think important.  Like someone earlier had said, the more fields/columns you have the better you are able to search the data.  I use the fields Type, Size, Road Name, Road Number, Manufacturer, Part Number, Comments.   I'd add an extra misc field on general principals for expansion if I did it over again, that way if I thought of something else I needed to track I wouldn't have to start over.

Blue Flamer

Edit from Blue Flamer.

Bob.

If you go back to around page 13 to 15 (at present time, 12:25PM) you will find a thread with Inventory Freeware in the title. This has the link to the freeware. I hope that this helps.

Blue Flamer.

Here it is:

http://easy-model-railroad-inventory.rclsoftware.com/index.htm

7j43k

I bought Yard Office.  It seems OK, and it's only $35.  Or, it was when I bought it.

I e-mailed in a question and never received a response.  Kinda disappointing.  And a bit of an enthusiasm killer.

Might try making my own with Excel.  Someday.

 

Ed

Here's why: The original YardOffice programmer passed away a year ago to a serious (forgotten) disease. Depending on when you inquired, you may have caught him in the hospital, or too late.  One of his firends is trying to man the info, but knows little. There is a YardOffice Yahoo! group he points everyone to.

I used YardOffice until I updated to a newer laptop. Undfotrtunately, YardOffice uses something called Microsoft Visual Foxpro to run its databases and YO couldn't find the MS Visual Foxpro support libraries. Possibly because they aren't on my laptop because it's not included in Win7 64bit. You may not be able to use it on Apple though, I don't know if Yard is smart enough to locate the Mac equivalent.

I actually create tables in MS Word for keeping track of my inventory.  The headings are up in the header so that they appear at the top of each page.  Comes in quite handy when printing them out.

Tom

Bob,

  Take a look at OpenOffice.org.  It's a free office suite that will run natively on Windows, Linux, or Mac, so you won't need to mess with Parallels or Boot Camp.. 

  I keep my inventory in a database using OOo's BASE, which is like MS Access (except IMHO a whole lot easier to understand and use).  You can set up all kinds of queries and reports as well.  I find that it works very well for my needs.

  However, if you prefer to use a spreadsheet or a word processor document as others have mentioned (databases seem to scare people off), you can do that as well with OOo since it's a full-featured, easy to use but powerful suite with all the bells and whistles.

I would suggest that part of deciding what inventory system you use, that the car forwarding system be part of the equations.  If you are going to use some sort of software to generate car cards or switch lists, having some sort of compatibility between the two where you can move data in some manner between them will be a big plus.  No need to double keypunch all the car data in twice.

Open Office Base is a nice generic database.  The difference between MS Access and Base is Access has the ability to build what they call "macros", subroutines to perform a sequence of operations.  That is a very powerful tool to build in automation and sophisticated manipulation of the data.  I have built several Access databases to maintain inventory and generate car cards and waybills.  The real downside to Access is that you have to have a copy of the program to use the database and its only offered as a standalone product or bundled with the Professional suite.

If Open Office had the macro capability, I would build in it in a minute.

dehusman

I would suggest that part of deciding what inventory system you use, that the car forwarding system be part of the equations.  If you are going to use some sort of software to generate car cards or switch lists, having some sort of compatibility between the two where you can move data in some manner between them will be a big plus.  No need to double keypunch all the car data in twice.

Agreed.  OOo gives me the ability to do a selected export of my inventory into a CSV that can be taken into JMRI's "Operations", which is what I plan on using.  (I've just started playing with Operations, but so far it seems to do everything I want.)

Open Office Base is a nice generic database.  The difference between MS Access and Base is Access has the ability to build what they call "macros", subroutines to perform a sequence of operations.  That is a very powerful tool to build in automation and sophisticated manipulation of the data.  I have built several Access databases to maintain inventory and generate car cards and waybills.  The real downside to Access is that you have to have a copy of the program to use the database and its only offered as a standalone product or bundled with the Professional suite.

If Open Office had the macro capability, I would build in it in a minute.

Agreed again, although since I've never had macro ability with OOo's Base, I've never missed it.  You either find other ways of doing things, or you just live without them!  

If you don't mind trying another Windows based program, try RR Trains. It is freeware and can be found easily with a Google search. It has just about all the features you can think of, to include the ability to have pictures of all your inventory. Just create a folder of your pictures and link to it. If you use DCC, it also has a place to maintain your DCC info. I use it for my N-scale and G-scale as two seperate data bases within the program. It works great for me. I have close to 500 enteries in my N-scale alone. One suggestion I would have is to backup the data file just in case of a computer problem.

sfcgadget

If you don't mind trying another Windows based program, try RR Trains. It is freeware and can be found easily with a Google search. It has just about all the features you can think of, to include the ability to have pictures of all your inventory. Just create a folder of your pictures and link to it. If you use DCC, it also has a place to maintain your DCC info. I use it for my N-scale and G-scale as two seperate data bases within the program. It works great for me. I have close to 500 enteries in my N-scale alone. One suggestion I would have is to backup the data file just in case of a computer problem.

I'd been using RR Trains for a few  years now, and when I read about Easy Inventory, I thought I'd give it a try. Because I already had a lot of inventory, I really didn't want to have to key all that data in again, and tried repeatedly to import the data (after exporting it to a CSV format file), and never could get it to do it. I even used their online help.. pfffft. Back to RR Trains, thank you. Since I don't use it to create car lists, it does everything I want it to do; maintain an inventory of my model railroad roster.

I have used Yard  Office for inventory for a couple years.  Yesterday I sent an inquiry to them regarding inventory of buildings and structures.  Today I got a response from jwp519@gmail.com.  He is suporting this now and said to contact him at that address with any issues, 

My inquiry and his response were no more than 8 hours apart.  Doesn't seem too far out of line.

Larry

I use a common spreadsheet program for my modelrailroad equipemnt inventory. Works fine for me.

Hi All -

I am Jack Carter's friend, the creator of Yard Office. Sadly, as mentioned, Jack passed away from ALS and I offered his family to continue support of the product as best I can.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments about Yard Office, and I'll get back to you as quick as possible.

Yard Office does indeed work fine on Windows 7 and Mac - just drop me a line as to your specifics and we'll get you up and running. Jack created a fine product - give it a try and let us know your thoughts.

Thanks,

Jeff Wright

I'm currently developing a Mac native inventory application, and could certainly use some ideas, right now I've got the basics in place. Anyone interested in checking out a beta version (expected to be available March or April 2011) please feel free to contact me.

I've been in contact with Jeff regarding Yard Office.  He's given me some suggestions that I believe will get me where I want to go.  

Thanks, Jeff

Ed